MAME claims "Required files are missing" but they ARE there in the .zip

[DennyDifferent]

I've been trying to debug why LaunchBox won't launch the few MAME games I've added. In debugging this I've tried to run the command locally to see what I get and this is the response with the zip contents side-by-side:

Any ideas?

[JoeViking245]

It's not that it's not finding the files inside the zip. It's not 'seeing' the zip, itself. 

Edit your MAME emulator in LaunchBox and in the Default Command-Line Parameters, add -rompath %romlocation%.  Also make sure both "Remove Quotes" and "Remove file extension" boxes are checked.

To test it from Window Command Prompt:  G:\LaunchBox>

Emulators\MAME240\mame.exe -rompath Games\Arcade asteroid

or from any location

"G:\LaunchBox\Emulators\MAME240\mame.exe" -rompath "G:\LaunchBox\Games\Arcade" asteroid

 

[DennyDifferent]

Excellent, cheers!

I've noticed that if I add a full romset, rather than selectively adding MAME roms from the non-merged set, that it keeps the roms in the MAME directory. I only want to add 100 or so selected games from my MAME library to my cabinet which is why I've been adding them selectively.

Edited March 29, 2023 by DennyDifferent

[neil9000]

15 minutes ago, DennyDifferent said:

Excellent, cheers!

I've noticed that if I add a full romset, rather than selectively adding MAME roms from the non-merged set, that it keeps the roms in the MAME directory. I only want to add 100 or so selected games from my MAME library to my cabinet which is why I've been adding them selectively.

You can only do this if you have a "Non-Merged" romset, if you have another type just moving random games will mean you are missing files from other zips that the game needs, and therefore they will always report missing files and not load.

[DennyDifferent]

4 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

You can only do this if you have a "Non-Merged" romset, if you have another type just moving random games will mean you are missing files from other zips that the game needs, and therefore they will always report missing files and not load.

Aye, I'm using non-merged for precisely this reason.

[fromlostdays]

On 3/29/2023 at 7:12 AM, JoeViking245 said:

It's not that it's not finding the files inside the zip. It's not 'seeing' the zip, itself. 

Edit your MAME emulator in LaunchBox and in the Default Command-Line Parameters, add -rompath %romlocation%.  Also make sure both "Remove Quotes" and "Remove file extension" boxes are checked.

To test it from Window Command Prompt:  G:\LaunchBox>

Emulators\MAME240\mame.exe -rompath Games\Arcade asteroid

or from any location

"G:\LaunchBox\Emulators\MAME240\mame.exe" -rompath "G:\LaunchBox\Games\Arcade" asteroid

 

I've been on this kick to set all mame roms in individual folders named after the game, don't ask why its an obsessive compulsive thing. I'll worry about the finer details of updating the set later since I only update mame every few years. Anyway...

I'm using the most recent non merged set and ran into this same problem which is how I wound up here. This worked great by the way, and thank you, but I was wondering if you could explain WHY this works a little more conceptually to me? Is it that whatever launchbox is telling mame on launch has mame defaulting to looking for the files in other zips? What's going on here?

Lastly, is there a way to make the games work in Retroarch the same way, as it is having the same problem and I want to keep as many emulators working as possible.

Thanks!

[JoeViking245]

12 minutes ago, fromlostdays said:

I've been on this kick to set all mame roms in individual folders named after the game

That's sick.  And I don't mean in a younger generations' slang use if the word.  

 

13 minutes ago, fromlostdays said:

explain WHY this works

-romapth is one of many available MAME command-line parameters.  It's an override for what's set in mame.ini on the line "rompath".  If mame.ini doesn't exist, MAME defaults to its' subfolder "roms".  

Quote

Specifies one or more paths within which to find ROM or disk images. Multiple paths can be specified by separating them with semicolons.

 

 

28 minutes ago, fromlostdays said:

is there a way to make the games work in Retroarch the same way

I can't tell you.  It's not that I won't.  It's just I've never fathomed the thought of trying to run Arcade games in RA.  That's almost as obscure in my mind as separating MAME ROMs into individual folders.  

[fromlostdays]

3 hours ago, JoeViking245 said:

-romapth is one of many available MAME command-line parameters.  It's an override for what's set in mame.ini on the line "rompath".  If mame.ini doesn't exist, MAME defaults to its' subfolder "roms".  

So when launchbox passes the rom to mame to launch, mame is looking at the roms folder as set in the mame config. In my case that folder is on an external drive, and the config reflects that, but it's getting confused cause in that folder is a bunch of individual folders, and the command line is addressing that across the board? Nice.

Oh, you got jokes. I never use retroarch for arcade either, it's just going to bother me that it doesn't work, but now, I'm maining retroarch playa. I'll let you know how to get it working. 💪 

EDIT: Switching from the mame core to the fbneo core in RA fixed it, no additional steps required. Can't say why, but the mame core just doesn't seem to like trying to run non merged roms at the moment.

Edited July 8 by fromlostdays